"For more than 25 years, the district has had to rely on other agencies to do much of our forensics work for us," said Mayor Williams. "Having our own lab will greatly speed up the process investigators use to solve crimes that involve DNA. Plus, the consolidation of all of these labs into one building will result in greatly improved coordination and efficiency in solving crime and protecting public health, resulting in millions of dollars in savings for District taxpayers. We have the strong support of victim advocates, the local US Attorney's office, D.C. councilmembers, federal agencies and other community leaders in this effort who I am certain will continue to assist us as the construction of and the planning for the new lab progresses."
The new lab will house state-of-the-art forensic analysis laboratories that will perform crime scene evidence testing which is now done for the district by various federal agencies. The competing priorities and capacities of these federal laboratories have limited the district in the quantity and timeliness of its evidence analysis. The Forensics Unit will also house several additional functions including units for computer crimes, trace evidence analysis and controlled substances testing.
